


to be punished for love

by Sunset Days (DreamyRequiem)



Series: child of elements [1]
Category: Tales of Berseria, Tales of Xillia
Genre: F/M, Gen, remember when everyone was saying velvet looked like jude and milla's kid, yeah that's what this one shot is about
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2016-08-02
Packaged: 2018-07-28 19:07:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7653259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamyRequiem/pseuds/Sunset%20Days
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He tells her one of the old bedtime stories he used to tell her all the time when she was a kid.<br/>It's one about a boy who meets a woman. They becomes friends and heroes and save the world with their friends. Twice, they do that. In the end they fall in love and have a child they were never supposed to have. So they were punished.<br/>He finishes the story with this: The child they had made the boy turned man happier than anything and he would never have changed a thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to be punished for love

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd.  
> I know very little about berseria/zestiria land so I'm using everything that I do know for this haha. Al Bhed from FFX is used as foreign language because the grammar works like english does but sounds different. Hold your mouse over italicized stuff for the translation. For people using phones, translations are at the bottom.

He cradles the small body in his arms. How small she was, he thinks. Had he ever been that small? He suspects he had to have been, once. Everyone must have been that small once upon a time.

Well, almost everyone.

Origin, he doubts, had never been that small.

Ha, he laughs, what a joke. How had anyone ever worshiped Origin? All he can see from that spirit is pain and suffering.

Perhaps he and Milla deserve it but the little girl in his arms? She didn't. She had done no wrong and yet she will never see her mother again.

She will never meet her aunts or her uncles. Her adopted grandfather will never be able to dote on her. She will never get to see Leronde or Fennmont or Trigleph. Those places will never exist for her.

He curses Origin again. Why couldn't he have kept her out of this? He will never understand Origin's reasons for putting her through this.

...He needs to move. This place isn't safe for him let alone the little girl in his arms. The distant howls that rattle his bones and send shivers down his spine are not friendly.

They sound almost human some times. Like people screaming in pain or anger.

Whenever he thinks of that he shakes his head. He can't think of them that way. If they attack him he must treat them as any threat.

He needs to protect his daughter.

She is all he has.

* * *

The first village they arrive in is a fishing village. It's small and people are wary of travelers. He wonders if it's safe for them, if they'll be chased away.

He does odd jobs around the village to gather money. At first it's to pay for the tiny inn they stay in but later it's so that they have money for future travels.

Relearning to untangle fishing nets is an adventure. If only because he has to drag his daughter away from the nets several times. But he laughs for the first time since he had arrived in this world.

That is a relief on his soul.

Which is a good thing. He has a constant itch that tugs at him every day, every hour. His daughter pulls him away from it, centers him. Whatever is tugging at him wants him to go somewhere he doesn't want to go.

He would do it too if he didn't have his daughter. She is quite honestly the only reason he hasn't thrown everything down and stormed off into the plains and winds.

(A part of him wonders if this is what Victor felt about Elle--)

After relearning fishing nets he learns to fish properly. He had never really known, for all that Leronde had been an island town. It has something to do with him being raised in a clinic, he thinks, but either way knowing how to fish will help in the future.

Alvin isn't there to help gather food anymore, after all.

* * *

They leave the fishing village when his daughter is three months old. He fears they were nearing the end of their welcome and he didn't want to press his luck. His luck is never good.

It is as they're traveling that he starts figuring out why he feels that tug. It has something to do with wind and earth and he wishes he could remember what Milla used to say. She had always liked to talk about everyone's elemental affinity and he knows that whatever is bothering him has something to do with that.

He supposes he's glad that his daughter doesn't have to deal with this as well. It's tiring, trying to ignore it all the time.

Sometimes, as they travel in the bouncing caravan carriage, he sings old lullabies from his mother. He compares the language of Rieze Maxia and Elympios to the language of this land and he thinks: It's so stiff.

And it is.

His lullabies attract the attention of the children of the caravan. He gladly sings for them too so long as they don't wake his daughter.

They never do.

* * *

It's in a new village after three months of traveling that he figures out what the tugging is for sure.

It is the land. The energy of it vibrates and moves and it seems curious about him specifically. He has a feeling that it is because of his spirit channeling. He has used it only once, to soothe his daughter after she hit her hand a little too hard on a carriage floor.

But that must be it.

The people of this land cannot normally use artes like he can. They need a 'malak' or a, according to the whispers in the many inns he has been through, 'seraph'. The words mean the same thing he learns but they are used by different people.

This Abbey that people speak of constantly use the term Malak. Others, who seem distrustful of this Abbey, whisper 'Seraph' to each other when they mention the beings.

He wonders what the beings want to be called.

Either way, the fact that he is fundamentally different to these people may be the only reason why the world's energies seem so interested, interested enough to try and reach to him through the earth and wind.

* * *

The next months are spent with him learning how to gather nuts and berries from a near by forest. It is the best way for him to help out in this village as there are no rivers near by to fish from and no fish nets to untangle.

He dearly wishes he could help the local healers but he knows that if he tries he will fall on his old habits. He doesn't want to draw attention himself by using artes he really shouldn't be able to, not when there is no way for him to leave the village safely yet.

That was part of a plan he had, to get enough money to buy a steed for him and his daughter to move from one village to another without relying on other's good will. He thinks he may have enough after this food gathering

As he gathers nuts and berries and the others with him laugh about some shared joke he realizes that he hasn't laughed with anyone besides his daughter in months, almost a year.

But that is natural isn't it? He doesn't really have a true friend here. Leia, who had never failed to make him smile or laugh, is not here. Alvin's teasing is gone. He does not have Rowen or Elize to talk with.

He only has his daughter and he can not act like that with her.

* * *

As their fourth month in this village ends and his daughter turns a year old, he decides that they need to leave. He buys a sad horse and gathers their meager belongings. They're ready to leave in only a couple of hours. He bids goodbye to the people he gathered food with before he takes for the first path to the north, his daughter held close to his chest.

Along the way he falls into old habits with a broken old man. He fixes his leg with a spirit arte while the man watches warily. After he explains that he can only do this every now and again (a lie) the man seems much more amiable.

"My name is Melchior." The old man smiles, adjusting his large hat. "I feel that we will meet again one day, young man. If you ever have any troubles, please come to the Abbey. I will aid all I can."

Melchior leaves with a smile and wave.

"Goodbye," He calls after the old man. _"Syo dra Vuin fydlr ujan oui." _ He adds under his breath, unwilling to say the old well wishes aloud.

Part of him hopes he does see Melchior again.

* * *

It is through months of traveling that his daughter grows. They do not stop for long anymore, mere weeks in each village. He starts calling his daughter his 'Little Velvet'--because her hair is as soft as velvet.

He wonders who she got that hair from. Milla's hair had never been that soft.

Regardless, his almost two year old daughter starts getting into trouble as soon as she can walk by herself. She's curious and stubborn in a way that reminds him of every woman he's ever met and it makes him laugh.

He teases her in those moments and it reduces his daughter, who is learning two languages instead of one, into a mess of baby talk and half learned words. He loves her so much.

But one day a hellion appears almost right on top of them. He panics for a moment, worry for his daughter's safety overriding everything else, before he lashes out with a fist. He doesn't stop his spirit artes.

They work, if not as well as an actual seraphic arte would've. The hellion decides they're too much trouble and leaves them be.

He immediately calls for his daughter, fear clogging his throat and chest. For a few minutes there's no answer and his heart stops. Then he hears her calling out for him.

She's behind a tree unharmed and he cries. She throws himself and he just keeps crying. Spirits above and below, she's okay is all he can think.

"I'm _cunno_ , Papa," she says into his shoulder. All he can say in reply is a soft murmur of it's okay over and over again. Because it is as long as she is still alive.

* * *

He leads them to a town after that. He's scared, he knows this. Otherwise they would continue as they always had. But his daughter's life could've been lost back then and he refuses to allow it to happen. Not as long as he breathes.

The town is nice at first. The Abbey has a strong presence there but it was fine in every other avenue. Except the air started getting heavier and heavier.

After a month it starts getting hard for him to breath. It's as if the air is becoming more malevolent as each day goes by. Somehow, it scares him almost as much as that hellion attack.

He looks around town, trying to see if anything was different.

It isn't.

He doesn't understand. Did the air change as he lived there? Or had it always been that way and he'd only realized now?

Oddly, he is inclined to believe the latter. If nothing has changed than it must always be that way and he has only now become aware of it.

His daughter is not.

* * *

They leave, even if his daughter does not understand. In a way he is glad. After all it meant she would not suffer if she ever decides to move to a town when she's older.

But for him, that place is poison. To not be able to breath? To not be able to do basic tasks that even an old woman on death's doorstep could do? He needed air that was not choked with the anger and suffering of others.

So they travel again.

His daughter quickly stops complaining. Traveling is fun for her, despite the scare they'd had the last time they'd traveled. He's happy for that as it is better than her being too scared to go anywhere.

Month upon month pass as they travel and they celebrate her birthday on the road. He teaches himself how to hunt, which takes time and effort. He has to learn how to use a bow and arrow and how to skin. Always he is careful not to let his daughter see.

She is too young for this.

He would teach her one day, everything he knew and everything he has learned. But that day was not just yet.

* * *

They are traveling through a forest when they find the ruins. The ruins overlook a cliff and his daughter delights in scaring the daylights out of him by spinning and dancing far too close to the edge for his comfort.

Their steeds need rest, he decides. If they kept being pushed as they have been for the past weeks, they would likely fall ill and die. So they set up camp and fall asleep.

When they wake up it's to the curious faces of a hunting group.

There's a village hidden in the forest. He learns that they watch over these ruins for the day all changes. When he asks what they mean they shrug and tell them they are not sure.

It's just that they've been doing it for centuries so why should they stop now?

It makes him think of Nia Khera and with that thought and feeling in mind he asks if he and his daughter could stay in the village for a while.

The villagers are baffled but say that they can.

* * *

The plan had been to stay for only a couple of months. Those couple of months turn to several months and then into years. Before he knows it, his daughter is six years old. And she loves it in this tiny village.

He laughs as she gushes about 'Cool Arthur!' and how he's offered to teach her the sword when she gets older. Arthur has already come to him for permission so he does not scold his daughter for accepting Arthur's proposal.

While they're in this village, he relaxes and breathes like he hasn't since he was last at home. He wonders if his daughter notices.

He meets Melchior again here. Melchior tips his hat to him before moving to speak to Arthur. He wonders why the old man seems to grim now: He used to seem kind and gentle.

What could have happened?

He never asks.

There is never a chance to.

* * *

Melchior accidentally brings an illness with him into the village.

They don't realize it until he leaves. It's a common cold, one easily dealt with. He has no worries about it.

Until he gets sick while treating the ill.

It makes his body burn and his chest heave. He can barely move let alone continue tending to the other ill. By the time two weeks have passed the rest of the sick are better.

But he still coughs. Arthur is there the day he starts coughing up blood and vomiting whatever food he eats. The man who would one day teach his daughter the sword is distraught because he can do nothing to help.

"Arthur." He says one day, weakly gesturing for the man to come closer. He does. "I want...you to watch over my daughter. Keep her safe."

Arthur swallows audibly. "I cannot. For you will do that--"

He shakes his head even if it makes his head pound. "No. I need you to promise to me with your life that you will protect and watch over her."

"I..." Arthur looks down at the hands clenched on the sheets. "....I promise on my life that I will protect and watch over your daughter."

_"Cu ed crymm pa."_ He mutters into the pillow. 

If Arthur notices his breathy oath, he says nothing.

* * *

On that last day, his daughter, his little Velvet, clutches his hand like she has nothing else in the world. He tells her one of the old bedtime stories he used to tell her all the time when she was a kid.

It's one about a boy who meets a woman. They becomes friends and heroes and save the world with their friends. Twice, they do that. In the end they fall in love and have a child they were never supposed to have. So they were punished.

He finishes the story with this: The child they had made the boy turned man happier than anything and he would never have changed a thing.

His daughter cries and cries. He responds by pulling his necklace free. It was a gift to him from Milla and now it would be a gift from him to their daughter.

He tells her this and her tears grow thicker. He feels numb even as he wishes he could brush her tears away. But he no longer has the strength to do that.

Pressing the necklace into her hand, he squeezes her hand with all the strength he has left.

 _"E muja oui." _ he whispers with the last of his strength.

He closes his eyes and exhales.

* * *

He opens his eyes and knows nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> [dark laughter]
> 
> Translations  
> Syo dra Vuin fydlr ujan oui: May the Four watch over you.  
> cunno: sorry  
> Cu ed crymm pa: So it shall be.  
> E muja oui: I love you.


End file.
